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Toy Story 3 Scrapped
Snap E Tom writes "The Independent Online is reporting that Toy Story 3 has been scrapped. This is a strong clue that the Pixar guys are firmly in control at Disney. The ground-breaking films were being milked into almost as many movies as The Sims has expansion packs. John Lasseter, Pixar's creative head, was strongly against the idea of third and forth movies, while the old Disney regime pushed forward with it. Now with Pixar and Steve Jobs on the board, Lasseter has taken the necessary steps to prevent the franchise from being diluted."
I think they should have released it and called it
Toy Story 3 : The cashening
Laugh It Off
According to talk in Hollywood, Disney was struggling with a script in which Buzz Lightyear, one of the two stars, developed a fault and had to be recalled to Taiwan for repairs.
That sounds like a reasonably good premise, actually.
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We do not need another sequal factory. My recommendation? Disney should leave Pixar alone. They seem to be doing just fine managing their own assets and continued box office success stories. Something disney can't claim with their own movies. So let pixar do what pixar does best and let the money flow without interference. Let disney start claiming more of that success and have stock prices go up.
I fear if they start meddling with it we're going to start ending up with a lot of straight to DVD releases that no one will really want to see.
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
It was too much, no film franchise could resist a fourth release without a big hit on quality. I hope this marks a trend on the industry.
I find also interesting the Cringely's take on the adquisition, as he says it's only a way for Jobs to diversify his income.
Hosting 20G hd, 1Tb bw! ssh $7.95
I am likewise firmly against movies being created with FORTH.
.sig
Eventually this spells the end of Debian. They will run out of toys.
At the current release rate, we should be able to predict the date of Debian's demise.
At least someone in the entertainment industry knows when to say "its been agood run" and move along to new things. The problem with entertainment today is that the industry has gotten so big that they have forgotten the first rule of showbiz, always leve 'em wanting more.
Hey--at least they wouldn't dream of doing it in LISP--although some of the characters might have one...
Trying to do entertainment in the venture capital style has been the main reason for the flood of dreck we've been seeing from hollywood for decades. Sequels, repackaging of Shakespeare and the Bronte sisters, butchering great books, etc.. Disney's going to be making movies with decent story lines, and the rest of Hollywood is going to have to hire some writers. I can't wait.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Does this herald the rise of creativity in Disney's output? If so, it'll be a difficult one to sell to the accountants and the more conservative shareholders: re-runs are provably successful; improving the brand is more nebulous. Ultimately, you can never know the real cause for higher sales across the board.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Well - Disney animation, at least.
John Lasseter and Ed Catmull truly understand how to make good, original films -- and with Jobs riding shotgun upstairs as the biggest shareholder, they can actually get things done. This decision is proof that they are firmly in control. I think Lasseter, Catmull, and the terrific artists over in Burnbank are going to create some great films - and I'm sure some of them will be 2D as well (Brad Bird - here's your chance)
There's some great quotes from Disney artists about the managements change over at Cartoon Brew ( http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ ) Here's one from Floyd Norman (story artist who started at Disney in the 50's and has worked at many other places as well)
Not too many guys can say they've worked for both Walt Disney and John Lasseter, so I can offer a unique perspective.
Different cultures at Disney and Pixar? Naw, it's the same culture. Eisner's managers simply choked all the creative life out of Disney. The Disney culture is finally returning to Disney. Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs and John Lasseter will be returning it shortly. This is good news for all of us who love animation, and the Disney legacy in particular.
I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to The Incredibles. I think they left an excellent door open for that. I see it based around the family learning to function as a team.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Disney pays 7 billion for Pixar. As a result, Pixar is calling the shots at Disney.
Who owns who?
I guess it never occurred to anyone at Disney that milking these franchises to the point of nearly destroying them not only ruins the value of the first few good ones for future generations (like what the Matrix sequels did to the first one) and the exploitation of old stories instead of creating new ones tends to make a company look washed up to its customers.
Can we hope to see this sort of thing spread? Can we hope to see the creative arts industries wake up and kick the coke addled, bromidic MBAs out of the animation studios and film sets, and into their little offices so they can work on their little spreadsheets like they are supposed to?
Toy Story 2 was something very unusual for Disney--a sequel that was actually good. Their usual practice is to follow up a great animated film with an utterly crappy direct-to-video release. Perhaps they fell into this habit as a result of their fairy tale films; there's not much chance of making a good sequel to "Beauty & the Beast" or "The Little Mermaid." But Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote dozens of sequels to Tarzan, all of them pretty good; there was no reason why Tarzan 2 had to be crap. Nor was there any reason why Casper the Friendly Ghost 2 had to be crap. Either one of these could have had a strong sequel. Running strong properties into the ground like this is simply bad business.
All the names of the Debian releases so far have been based on characters from Toy Story. If there's no more Toy Story movies made, Debian will soon run out of characters, and will be forced to give up on making systems! :)
Pixar is one of, if not the, finest film studios around right now. I was really worried about Disney ruining everything that makes Pixar great, and I was also worried about the Jobs reality distortion field making things worse.
Instead of my fears of Disney corrupting Pixar it looks like Pixar is going to help Disney get back to where they used to be and that would be an excellent thing. I wonder what the minds at Pixar could do with the Muppet franchise.
My fingers are crossed.
sig.
It's misreported in this article that Pixar and John Lasseter didn't want to make another Toy Story sequel. In fact, they do. They just don't want to make the sequel that Disney had planned. Evidently John has a better story in his head, and wants to make it with that story. With Pixar's track record vs. Disney's track record, thank goodness they're going to get a chance to scrap the current story and do it themselves. I saw Robert Iger was quoted somewhere as saying he felt like the people at Pixar, who were really involved with these characters from the beginning, should be making the sequels. Woah! A corporate executive who sounds like he understands the artistic side of things? That's amazing.
Ignoring all of the possible positive potential this might have on the creative process at Disney, this isn't the only effect the merger might have.
Keep in mind that until the Sony rootkit, Disney has historically been one of the worst offenders as far as pushing DRM. (If I recall correctly, they were one of the most solid backers of DIVX - no, not DivX, DIVX. There's a big difference. I'm also pretty sure they were also one of the only backers of DIVX that apparently intended not to ever allow customers to "silver" a disc - paying a one time flat fee for unlimited viewing, you would only ever be able to view your Disney DIVX discs as pay-per-view.)
Jobs, on the other hand (well, at least Apple with him at the helm), has had a much more lenient approach with DRM. Apple's DRM has typically been described as "the bare minimum to keep content providers happy", and Apple has actively resisted attempts to force increases in the restrictions of their DRM. Keep in mind that throughout this all, Jobs was also a content provider, since he also ran Pixar.
Could Jobs calling the shots at Disney mean a more consumer-friendly Disney? I hope so.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Rest in peace Jim 'Ernest P. Worrell' Varney....
P.S. If they do the 3rd film, perhaps they'll have Slinky Dog in it
featured prominently (yet silently) in the background of various scenes.
Or maybe the other toys will mourn his passing in the film -- going to
that 'great junkheap in the sky'....
To get a 'soundalike' to do Slinky Dog for a 3rd film would be wrong and besmirch
Varney's memory and his memorable characterization of Slinky Dog.
This is somewhat similar to Steve Whitmire doing Kermit The Frog -- taking over for
the late, great James Maury Henson when he passed away back in 1991. Steve (now) does Kermit practically as good as Jim did but I know it is just not the same any more....
Food for thought.
I don't get why so many people seem to think that endless sequels are some phenomenon that Hollywood recently invented.
Lord of the Rings was a sequel that Tolkien was encouraged to write to cash in on the success of The Hobbit.
Ditto Huckleberry Finn as a sequel to Tom Sawyer.
Ditto Bride of Frankenstein as a sequel to Frankenstein.
All of these are pretty widely considered to be superior to their originals.
Then there are the endless Pink Panther series, the "Thin Man" movies, the multiple history plays by Shakespeare, various sequels built into the books of the Hebrew Bible, and even the Aeneid and the Odyssey, both of which are sequels to the Iliad.
Sure, most sequels don't approach the level of artistry of many of the above. But a sequel per se, even one motivated by the desire to cash in on the original, is not a priori a bad thing. The judgment cannot be made till after the sequel is made.
I refer you to Sturgeon's Law (more accurately called Sturgeon's Revelation).
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
Originality:
Pixar has it.
Disney needs it.
Disney got it wether they wanted it or not or even know it.
When you wish upon a star be careful what you wish for; you might just get it.
Generally, the only movies that ever have good sequels are based on a tv show, or a line of open-ended books. Such stories are designed for later "episodes." I wish I could elaborate more on why it seems this way to me; the same reasons that make normal movie sequels suck play the same integral part in making the "based on tv" sequel actually work.
Either way, John Q Public will eventually get bored with Star Trek as a concept, and move on to Sex and the City or something else. I suspect pretty much anybody on slashdot could point out numerous cases of Star Trek jumping the shark.
Initially I was worried about this buyout. Pixar is responsible for my personal favorite film (The Incredibles, narrowly edging out Serenity).
But I was talking with some people about this last night and I realized something. First, Steve Jobs has had a lot of experience with the media industry thank to iTunes and his experience at Apple. Granted, that's more music than movies but I think the same basic forces are in play. I think he has a clear view of how both industries are, and the quality problems that Disney has, and the inevitable financial consequences that will eventually follow.
Second, Steve Jobs is an excellent businessman. I don't think he would trade 50+% of Pixar for 7% of Disney, unless he had some good reason to believe that Disney was going to be able to grow more than Pixar. The only way that would be true is if the merger deal included a lot of control over Disney by the Pixar crew, because clearly Business As Usual at Disney wasn't going to get it done.
I haven't heard about the specifics of the deal; maybe it's been covered, but the only clue I have is basically TFA (which I saw earlier). But it gives me a lot of hope. Still not convinced, but "hopeful" is a major improvement from when I figured that Disney would just kill the golden goose.
The Pixar mantra has been "It's all about the story". If Lasseter says the "Disneyfied" TS3 is scrapped for now, then the developed story "stunk". It's not possible to start with crap and turn it into honey. More power to PIXAR-isney.
I like Jon Stewart, I like The Daily Show, and I even like the movies that I just dissed, but he's the LAST person that should comment on other people's films. At least he makes fun of his own roles in those movies. I don't find the Pixar movies to be rehashed crap at all... I mean, there are no new plots available so the storytelling is what is important. They do a fantastic job with character development. A cartoon is always ready for product tie-in - I don't feel like they really have to compromise the film in order to put the characters on a Burger King box. Remember the feat that these guys have accomplished - making a movie for kids that adults happily watch and enjoy... that is pretty rare.
Finally, I think what you perceive as a "videogame" camera angle is really just the state of current computer technology. When I was a kid, a videogame camera angle would have been strictly 2-D sprites like every cartoon made prior to Toy Story (sorry, I know that is probably not 100% true).
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
[Neil is crying softly]
Rick: Shut up, Neil, shut up! What's the matter?
Neil: I'm sorry, everybody. I'm sorry, Bambi. I'm just remembering, like, that bit when you got lost in the snow, and the rabbit found you, it was so beautiful...
Vyvyan: Yeah, I liked the bit where you shoved the drill in the virgin otter's face.
Neil: That wasn't in "Bambi", Vyvyan!
Vyvyan: It was in the sequel, Neil. "Bambi Goes Crazy Ape Bonkers with His Drill and Set".
Neil: [gravely] Is that true, Bambi? Did you do a Disney nasty?
Bambi: So what if I did? I'm not apologizing. My life collapsed after "Bambi". I was a lovable fawn alright, unusable for anything else. I took the Babycham stuff, sure, thanks to Mike here, but I was finished. When the porn "Bambi" came along, well, I thought, this is where I get something back...If it hadn't been for the chance to present University Challenge and start a new life, I'd be giving executive relief to woodland creatures to this very day.
c&p source
David Stainton, who was running Disney Feature Animation, came up via DisneyToons. He's out, apparently.
Incidentally, if you want to track what's going on in the animation industry, read The Animation Guild newsletter, The Pegboard, published by Local 839, IATSE. 85% of the film and TV industry is unionized, and they're working on organizing the video game industry.
Yeah, take Oliver Stone's JFK for instance.
When "Steamboat Willie" enters the public domain you get two things only:
1 The right to reproduce and distribute the cartoon, which is meaningful only if you have access to a master print, unprotected copy or restoration. "Steamboat Willie" was released in 1928 on nitrate stock with Cinephone sound-on-disk. Good luck on that one.
Good look financing a project that will compete with Disney's own compilation DVDs, which can be purchased anywhere starting at $12.
2 The right to produce derivatives based on the characters and story of "Steamboat Willie" and only "Steamboat Willie." That doesn't give you much. You want the riverboat comedy and adventure, you go to Buster Keaton and Mark Twain as your primary sources. It's the introduction of synchronized sound that makes "Willie" important. The character designs are trademarked.
It's probably also why "Cars" was looking to be a piece of crap - since the movie was simply being done to fulfill a contractual obligation, Pixar would phoen it in, and Disney could choke on their contract. I wouldn't be surprised if "Cars" goes into turnaround now that there's a real reason to make it.
I can't believe nonsense like this gets to be modded to +5.
John Lasseter is directing this film, personally. Doing a bad job on a film just to fulfill a contractual obligation would do incredible damage to the Pixar brand. No one with any position of authority would tolerate any trash going out under the Pixar name at all, let alone deliberately out of spite for one's business partner. And it's not like ALL the profits from the 5 (or, rather 6) films went to Disney, there was a somewhat even split, so Pixar has a lot on the line with each title.
The teaser trailer for Cars wasn't that great, sure. To get a better idea of what the film will be, check out the little-circulated international trailer.
franchised rehashed crap, ready for toy and videogame tie-ins from day 1
What? Toy Story, ready for toy tie-ins from day 1? Inconceivable!
To inject my opinion: Just look at the lengthy chase high-speed chase scene with the son in The Incredibles: it was shot from the vidoegame camera angle, I felt like I was watching someone play the game rather than a movie.
Er, that's not your opinion, that's a damn fact. The scene is shot with bits of video-game like camera angles.
My opinion: It was great! The kid's first super-speed chase felt like a videogame. He looked like he was taking it as seriously as a kid his age takes videogames too.
the films are remarkable bland plots
Ok, you ARE aware that these are KID'S movies, right? Us grownups can enjoy them, but the plots have to be suitable for preschoolers. Preschoolers are typically not terribly sofisticated, as might have noticed if you ever attempted to discuss international politics with any of them.
That is, of course, on the surface.
If you take it more seriously, go read the ancient greek myth of Hercules, most notable his 12 superhuman chores, and then rewatch Incredibles. You might notice something (hint: Edna represents Athena).
You can't take the sky from me...
Toy Story 2 surprisingly managed to be even better than Toy Story 1. If they could make a third movie that was again even better then I say go for it. The reason Toy Story is so good isn't because of it's plot or how it's rendered - it's the personalities and relationships of the characters. The movies have a plot simple enough for children to follow but a depth that will keep adults interested. It's just good movie making. We really learned to care about the characters. That is really the important part about any movie.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Hollywood has always only been about dead presidents.
Yeah, but they used to be about getting dead presidents by delivering quality entertainment.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I've been working with franchise movie memes for the past couple of weeks. Although they often show equal or higher sales, their actual audience interaction declines steadily with each successive movie.
y =movie_madness_threedux
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entr
Essentially, I believe that the original movie sets a cultural context that successive movies play upon, and that each sequel is attractive to audiences BECAUSE it requires less thinking. It's interesting that sales often remain the same, even though there's less expressed interest.
That's a reworking of the idea of marginal utility in economics. Because the sequel costs less, it's equally desirable as its marginal utility falls.
Very interesting stuff that you can derive a lot of conjectures from.
I thought they already made Toy Story 3: Monster Edition? Followed by Toy Story 4 Underwater, and Toy Story 5 Supertoys.
(This joke shamelessly stolen from The Daily Show).
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
In the specific case of Disney's direct-to-video sequels, these films were never intended to be of theatrical-release quality. These films are mostly assembled with a formulaic storyline, second-rate voice talent, and a bare minimum of animation artistry, all on a shoestring budget. The management at Disney never intended for these to be comparable to the originals in any capacity. They never even had a chance to be great.
I haven't seen Bambi II yet, but I guarantee you it won't come close to the quality of the original. I can make that judgement without having seen it, because of the manner in which it was conceived.
Plenty of Hollywood sequels (Godfather II, Empire Strikes Back, and yes, even Toy Story 2) have been acclaimed more highly than their predecessors. In most cases, this was because they were guided by the same director and/or creative team, who in turn were allowed their freedom by the studio. Too often, the studio management elects to make a sequel without the input of the first film's creators, and often there is an artificial pressure to do it quickly, while the first film is still "fresh." Most importantly, film studios are notoriously risk-averse, which is not usually a creative asset. Disney's animation department, of late, has exemplified these traits, and so I can say without hesitation that Toy Story 3 would have sucked.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
If only George Lucas had thought as you do.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
how long before the entire contents of the disney vault are available on itunes?
Snowden and Manning are heroes.